Command Squad

"All right, men! Time to wage war!"

In Dawn of War, the Imperial General leads his troops in person. However, he does not do so alone: Commissars, Priests, and Psykers are ready to advise and protect him. His presence on the battlefield serves as a rallying point for Guardsmen.

Tactics

The Command Squad is capable of handling most enemy heroes early on, but loses effectiveness in direct combat by Tier 3. At this point the only way to keep the squad in melee combat is through chaining together the Priest's Fanatacism, a very time limited tactic. It's usually better to switch over to Psykers instead for their special abilities.

The Commissar's main purposes in the squad is as a damage sponge and to harrass in Tier 1. Next to the General, he has more health than any other squad member, has the highest building damage, and is the only one to provide a worthwhile amount of ranged damage. A Command Squad with a Commissar is thus best used to shoot enemy builders and attack Listening Posts and Generators. He provides a healthy morale bonus to the Command Squad. He is quicker to build than the Priest, so in a time-critical situation the Commissar may be a better choice despite his weaker strength in melee combat.

The Psyker has meager combat abilities but adding several to the Command Squad makes for an excellent way to quickly and conveniently use the Psyker's impressive array of abilities. Although the Command Squad variant has less health than his Field Command counterpart, this is negated by the Priest's bonus, and the simpler micro is more than worth the tradeoff. In melee the Psyker's special attack does incredible disruption although the Psyker himself is too fragile to be effective as a general melee combat fighter.

The Priest provides an incredible set of bonuses for the squad , and adds an impressive amount of melee damage as well. Under most circumstances adding a Priest to the command squad should be your first move. Keeping one or more in the squad during the late game for Fanaticism will provide the squad with enough time to use the General's or Psyker's special abilities in an otherwise deadly environment, and allows you to still use the Command Squad's strong disruption attacks against key targets.

Abilities

Strafing Run

The Imperial General calls down a strafing run by an overhead Vulture squadron. 32 small bombs are randomly dropped in a radius of 12 around the targeted location, damaging anything caught in the blast and throwing infantry around (20-30 force).

Damage Values

Infantry

Vehicles

Buildings

Daemons

Base Damage

Low

Med

High

H.Med

H.Hi

Cmdr

Low

Med

High

Air

Low

Med

High

Med

High

Morale

Min

Max

Min.D

30-60

30-60

30-60

30-60

30-60

30-60

7.5-15.0

30-60

30-60

-

30-60

30-60

30-60

30-60

30-60

40

30

60

0

Imperial Knockback

Imperial Knockback

Requires

Nothing

Target Types

All enemy infantry

Range

Entire squad

Area of effect

0

Cooldown time

Passive ability, once every 2 hits

Effects

All members of the Command Squad gain Imperial Fury, allowing them to knockback enemy infantry (15-20 force).